No choice but to consider DMP - help appreciated!

emsgirl

It is incredible the amount I've been refunded. It's also crazy as it shows just how much of your debt is actually interest - it's easy to see how debt can snowball due to this.

Thanks - I think I will self manage at the moment and if anything starts getting stressful or complicated I will go to stepchange.

Not entirely sure what's happening with my closed accounts i.e Halifax, MBNA and Admiral. I assume they will accept lower monthly payments and just report that to the credit reference agencies and then they said all negative entries will be removed once the balance is paid. I'll see if they request a normal monthly repayment this month. They're just not going to default but I guess as long as I've paid the balances before 6yrs it's still no worse than defaulting as the negative entries will get removed (i.e late or lower payments). I'm not too worried about getting reduced settlements on these as I feel it's fair enough that the interest has been removed and I'm only paying what I actually have spent.

I'm hopeful for good outcomes from the ombudsman so it will be easier to manage everything myself at least until I know exactly where I stand with everything.

Thanks again to all of you for your help - I have learnt so much on these forums and I can see how much you all contribute. You really should know you the impact you have - you have made a huge difference to so many lives!

Rob5342

There are two stages at the FOS, the first is an investigator and the second is an Ombudsman. If you don't agree with the investigator you can ask for the complaint to be looked at by an Ombudsman for a final decision. They told me that it was unlikely that the Ombudsman would decide any differently for my complaint but I asked for it to be escalated anyway and they found in my favour. 

emsgirl

Good to know - thanks for the info.